Major New Airport

July 22, 1986

MANAGUA, NICARAGUA — The Sandinista government has completed construction of a major new airport on the country's Atlantic coast near the border with Honduras. The pro-government daily El Nuevo Diario reported Sunday that the airport, at Puerto Cabezas, 250 miles northeast of Managua and 12 miles south of the border, has an 8,250-foot runway that can handle planes as large as the Boeing 727. Under former President Anastasio Somoza, who has since died, the old Puerto Cabezas airport was used for the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion in which U.S.-supplied Cubans unsuccessfully sought to depose Cuban President Fidel Castro. Somoza was ousted in July 1979 after a year's civil war, and the Sandinista government took over.